Corps will do its level best to fill lake Down to the waterline

Susan Drumheller - Staff writer

SANDPOINT _ A power crunch and a record low snowpack are conspiring against boaters and beachcombers on Lake Pend Oreille this year.

The operators of the Albeni Falls Dam say it's too soon to tell whether the lake will reach summer pool level.

And if it does, they don't know how long it will stay there.

Demand for power generation and downstream flows for ocean-going salmon, combined with less than half the normal runoff into Lake Pend Oreille, keep them from making any promises.

"At this point, the plan is to fill the lake," said Joseph Summers, operations and maintenance chief at Albeni Falls Dam, which is managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

"There's half a dozen variables that play into this. (The plan) could change," he said. "We don't know yet."

Defenders of lake life and good fishing say the corps needs to start making decisions based on what benefits the people and fish of Idaho -- not what benefits downstream users, salmon or power suppliers.

They point to legal documents 50 to 70 years old that establish a recreation water right to Idahoans on Lake Pend Oreille and make recreation and fish and wildlife conservation priorities for the dam's management.

According to the secretary of war's original plan for the dam, the lake level would be maintained at summer pool for nearly six months.

Those matters will be argued in a case scheduled to go to trial in U.S. District Court in November. A lawsuit was filed by the Lake Pend Oreille Idaho Club against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The suit's main purpose is to give the club some clout in helping decide how the dam is managed, club members say.

"We're trying to get a seat at the table and be a voice for the fishery," said Jim Watkins, a club board member.

The club's annual spring fishing derby begins this Saturday.

The lake is lower than usual for the derby, while the dam sends water downstream specifically for power generation to ease the current crisis declared by the Bonneville Power Administration.

Normally, the lake would be a couple feet higher by now.

"We're filling it a little late," said Cindy Henrickson, chief of the reservoir control center in Portland. The slower refill rate is Lake Pend Oreille's contribution to easing the energy crisis, she said.

Other reservoirs around the West, including Lake Koocanusa behind Libby Dam and Dworshak Reservoir, will not be filled this year.

The elevation now on Lake Pend Oreille is 2,053 to 2,054 feet, and will stay there until May 5. After that, the corps will resume its schedule of reaching 2,060 by the end of May, and 2,062 by the end of June, Henrickson said.

But despite the corps' stated plans, the fact remains that the flow into Lake Pend Orielle is falling fall short of the norm and the energy crisis isn't expected to ease up anytime soon. The Panhandle's peaks have the lowest snowpack on record this year, and according to National Weather Service forecasts, there won't be enough snow and rain this spring to bring it back above record lows.

Lightning Creek is so parched that the creek has dropped underground, leaving only dry stones at its mouth.

In a letter to Idaho's congressional delegation, Ford Elsaesser, attorney for the club, expressed concern for the local economy if the lake doesn't fill.

"A severe drop in the summer lake level will have a devastating impact on what is becoming a primary engine of the North Idaho economy -- tourism and recreational businesses in the summer," he wrote.

Now, some marinas, including the Windbag Marina at City Beach and the Sandpoint Marina in Sand Creek, are non-navigable. Most fixed piers around the lake are marooned in midair, far from any surface water.

Elsaesser also cited a court stipulation that calls on the corps to hold the lake at 2,062.5 feet during the summer months until Sept. 15 and to draw it down not more than one foot in September. The club had demanded a court injunction against the corps, but the stipulation was agreed to as a compromise.

The club and the corps stopped seeing eye to eye when the fishery of kokanee, a land-locked salmon, spiraled toward collapse.

The prime suspect in the demise of the fish was the corps, which started drawing down the lake in winter to 2,051 feet in the mid-'60s. With the drastic drawdowns, the fish lost 82 percent of their spawning habitat, according to fish biologists.

The corps participated in an experiment in the late '90s where the lake was kept at 2,055 feet during winter months, which provided better spawning habitat for the fish. Last year, the corps had planned to draw the lake down to 2,051 feet again, but was stopped by a court injunction initiated by the Lake Pend Oreille Idaho Club.

While the club would like to see a longer recreation season on the lake, its primary goal is restoring the fishery, Watkins said.

"This is not a reservoir," he said. "It is a natural lake and that's how it should be managed."

But without the dam, Henrickson said, the lake would drop below the current winter levels by late August -- a state of affairs that would undoubtedly irritate most boaters and lakeshore property owners.

"With a dam on a river, it does alter the lake levels," she said. "That does make Pend Oreille a reservoir now."

-- Anonymous, April 26, 2001